


staring at the sun

by perfectlyrose



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M, Ficlet, Pining, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-02
Updated: 2017-07-02
Packaged: 2018-11-22 11:06:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 301
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11378919
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/perfectlyrose/pseuds/perfectlyrose
Summary: The Doctor looked away, feeling burned by her brilliance, like he had looked at a sun too long without proper protection.





	staring at the sun

The Doctor watched as Rose was spun around the dance floor at some gala in their honor that she’d asked him to stay for. She didn’t ask often so he had relented and let her be swept away by the locals to get ready for the party.

Now she was here, dressed in a flowing amber gown that shimmered in the soft lights, smiling and laughing; the belle of the ball. 

The Doctor looked away, feeling burned by her brilliance, like he had looked at a sun too long without proper protection. 

(She’d stripped away years, centuries of protection from him without realizing, without effort. Now he was vulnerable to her every solar flare, her every spark and smolder.)

(There were burn marks scarring his skin, hidden beneath leather and wool and denim. He pressed on them sometimes, let the pain remind him that being able to feel anything was good, pressed on them to remind himself that this was all he deserved anyways.)

The Doctor was still lost in his thoughts, probing this latest burn mark when a hand came to rest on his arm. He looked up and it was her, smiling just for him this time, the rest of her admirers forgotten, relegated to yearning from a distance like he had been.

She sat down next to him, twining their fingers together and stealing a sip of his drink while she chattered about this person and that. He listened, enraptured as always.

Her fingers left new scorch marks on his skin, layering over countless old scars, even as her soft smile acted as a balm.

(He would continue to dance around her flames, drawn in as inexorably as a moth to the light, never learning from the burns and craving the salvation that she bestowed in equal measure.)


End file.
